It’s my birthday, so something silly. (I am not aware of this being a “meme.”)
- The Good Soldier, retold by a limited third-person narrator in chronological order
- An epic poem in irregularly rhymed iambic tetrameter of at least, say, 10,000 lines
- Pudding for the Pious
- A chronological, limited-third-person version of The Good Soldier in irregularly rhymed iambic tetrameter
- The thinly disguised story of my life. Written in the Spenserian stanza.
The Good Soldier with an omniscient narrator would be funny, too. The narrator’s omniscience would be challenged by the characters – he knows all, but it turns out there is nothing to know.
Maybe that’s not the way to go.
One could do worse for a birthday wish. Happy birthday.
In Colette’s memoir Earthly Paradise, she recounts that her father kept a shelf full of books for which he’d invented titles (the books themselves were blank). I’d be happy with a list of those titles for a birthday present when my turn comes around.
Oulipian constraints are like Olympic records. They can be broken. Happy greetings.
Happy Birthday! Of these splendid projects, the last one looks the most achievable. I’m sure I’ll enjoy it if you post it here. ;)
Nicole, Happy Birthday! However, I’d appreciate it if you discouraged ongoing talk of how great The Good Soldier is until I make some more progress on my reading backlog. Cheers!
Tom–That was my original idea, but it did seem to have that fatal flaw. But the way you put it makes me think it could be done War and Peace style–lots of talk about all the possibilities that we can never know about or understand. Ha!
Scott–How lovely that story is!
Rise–Lol, but they’re so much fun!
litlove–Thanks so much, though I’m sure it’d bore you to tears!
Richard–Thanks. I will only refrain from mentioning excellent yet unread books if other litbloggers do so as well! But wait, that seems to be missing the point…